“Samsung is doubling down on technology investments in its competitor [Apple]’s backyard, including two new R&D buildings in Silicon Valley that will house 2,000 staff and a recently announced startup accelerator,” Jessica Leber reports for MIT Technology Review.

“Leading this effort is Young Sohn, who started at Samsung in August as president and chief strategy officer. He has spent a long career leading several successful Silicon Valley semiconductor and storage companies after founding Intel’s PC chipset business and running its joint venture with Samsung in the 1980s,” Leber reports. “MIT Technology Review… sat down with Sohn in his office in Menlo Park, California, to talk about his new mandate.”

Young Sohn’s comments include:

Samsung doesn’t want to be complacent. To get to the next stage of growth, the innovation engine is critical. You need to have the right people. You cannot just optimize talent in Korea—you have to optimize talent overseas, and being close to critical innovation centers like Silicon Valley is important to us.

I use a Mac, actually, at home. I’ve always used Mac, an iPhone, and an iPad… If you look at the strengths of Apple, in a way it’s not the product per se. It’s that consumers like their ecosystem such as iCloud. I like that my family 6,000 miles away in Korea is able to see my schedule and see all of my contacts and photos.

Still, Apple is a Samsung customer, relying on the company for its mobile processor needs. Despite their obvious anger toward each other, that processor relationship has forced them, at least in part, to set aside their differences.